I recently was talking to a cop (a friend of a friend) at a bar drinking together. I asked him why don’t they bust drunk drivers leaving certain known establishments in town since likelihood of anyone leaving these joints drunk are nearly 100%. He said it’s something that’s just not done… hinting it is unwritten rule that you just don’t harass/bust customers of any local tax paying businesses.
I am wondering how far do these symbiotic relationships go beyond letting drunk drivers drive off scot-free? What other businesses exist on these kinda relationships? Are you a beneficiary of such practices and happy about it/“what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” or do you think it’s fundamentally contradictory and wrong?
I’m not sure exactly why this is. I’ve often wondered, for example, why cops don’t just stake out the Taco Bell drive through at 3:30 am on Saturday night. I bet a solid 50% of the cars in that line are legally intoxicated.
This reminds me of something I’ve noticed about cops writing speeding tickets on my commute route: if they’re present at all during rush hour, they’re ticketing outbound cars during the morning rush, and inbound cars during the evening rush.
But more often they’re not there at all during rush hour, but if you have to leave work early for some reason, you’ll often find them out in force in the middle of the day.
So instead of ticketing hordes of people going 15-20 mph over the limit, but on their way to and from their jobs during rush hour, they’ll ticket isolated people driving the same speed on a nearly empty road in the middle of the day, or going the opposite direction from rush hour traffic.
From a safety POV this makes no sense. My theory is that they don’t want to piss off the upstanding citizens who might complain to their state legislator, and most of the people they bust in the middle of the day are less likely to be people of means.
This was told to me by the landlord of my local pub a few years ago. He’s a Freemason by the way.
So he’d been at a dinner dance arranged by the local constabulary and had a few more drinks than he should have. Getting into his car and heading for home he spots a cop car behind him. Takes a right turn, then a left, another right etc. and figures he’s safe, only to find another cop car right on his tail. Takes a few more evasive manouvres, thinks he’s lost them only to find another cop car right behind him. At this point he gives up and drives home, followed all the way by the cops. As he pulls up at home they drive on past, not giving him a second glance.
Next day he calls the chief constable and asks him why he’s been hassled all the way home.
Chief constable says “I just told them to make sure you got home alright”
Landlords reply was something like “well I wish you’d fucking told me that before I’d left, it would have saved me a whole lot of grief”
There are lots of Freemasons in the UK police so I’m quite prepared to believe this story.
From a certain safety POV, this actually makes a lot of sense. Pulling someone over in the middle of rush hour is a danger to the pullee, the puller, all the rubber-neckers trying to figure out what the flashing lights are about, and the people who don’t notice the traffic suddenly slowing in front of them (due mostly to the rubber-neckers and some to that reflexive move to the brake pedal when you see a cop on the highway, speeding or not).
"if any of you could put in a word for me I’d love to be a mason. Masonry opens doors. I’d be very quiet, I was a bit on edge just now but if I were a mason I’d sit at the back and not get in anyone’s way.
I think it’s a matter of difficulty and safety. It’s hard to pull from a dead stop into fast and dense traffic, especially because cops like to sit in places that have low visibility in order to catch speeders unaware. Besides, people slam on their brakes when they see a cop who isn’t pursuing anybody, and that could cause all kind of ripple effects, from crashes to traffic jams.
I have seen cops in rush hour traffic, but I agree that it’s rarer. I know one small town that has parked a crappy old cop car right by the side of the road and left it there in order to deter speeders. It’s been there for years.
It is actually possible to speed in the main traffic flow direction where you live? In Orlando on I-4 it is only possible to speed when you are against the traffic.
There are some stretches where I am curious just what you’d have to do to get pulled over. Like in Detroit, On 75 south to down town there is a piece after 94 exists where the road opens up and the speed limit drops to 50(or maybe 55 I really don’t pay much attention). Average traffic is 70. One time I passed a truck going 85, and didn’t notice the highway cop in front of him going probably 65. He never even looked. Then some guy blew by me at 95-100 probably. Nothing.
A Detroit city cop, will never give a shit, but for a highway cop to not care, there must be some directive I figure.
So the police stake out a bar known to put out a bunch of drunks at closing time. Sure enough, just at closing, this one fellow comes out staggering and weaving, looking for his keys, drops his keys, just taking forever.
Finally, he gets in his car and starts the engine up. Before he can even pull forward, the cops have pulled in behind him and turned on their lights. They take him out of the car, have him do all of the field sobriety tests and blow into a breathalyzer, all of which he passes with flying colors. The cops just scratch their heads and ask him why he had so much trouble getting to his car. He responds, “Tonight I was the designated distraction.”
I’ve heard this story before so I kinda think it’s an urban legend. however fwiw it’s certainly a widely held belief in the UK that freemasonery facilitates certain kinds of corruption in local government, the legal proffession and the police in particular – since freemasonery is common in those circles and freemasons look out for each other. Some people see a massive conspiracy at work, it’s more likely to be what happens in all kinds of networks and social groups to some extent. In other words the story would still work if the Chief of Police was a regular in the pub, went to the same school as the landlord or was his brother in law.